The snow falls gently
by Souku
Summary: A lone figure cloaked in sadness and confusion wades through the snow, searching. Pray, what is he calling for?


"Mother..."

Snow falls gently down from the skies. The world is covered in white and grey, muted in atmosphere and sound. As each delicate flake spirals to the ground, they hiss and disappear. As they fall they create their own soft melodies, the music of the forest. Who knows where they vanish to?

"Mo---ther..."

A whitewashed world devoid of all beauty hosts a single creature as he shuffles through the snow. The flakes twirl like dancers down, down, down. From meandering about in circles for hours alone, the snow hardly surprises him anymore.

"Mother, where are you?"

A Spearow perches high in the snow-laden fir trees. A small, robust, muddy coloured bird watches with beady eyes at the misfortunate fellow below. Inquisitively, he cocks his head from side to side. He observes the skies, the pale orb high in the grey shining weakly through layers of clouds, a poor excuse for a sun. Returning his attention to the wanderer, the bird rustles his wings and dislodges a meagre amount of snow onto the earth far beneath him. The observed notices nothing, too engrossed in his own thoughts.

Spearow lifts his head high, discontent with the silence, and lets out an earsplitting shriek. The cry rolls through the woods, echoing, and a flock of startled Pidgeys immediately takes to the skies. Fluffing up his small body, Spearow spreads out his wings and pushes off the tree's branches. He disappears into the distance. The snow, still falling, disappears into the ground.

"Mother?"

Looking backwards, a strange creature eyes his progress in the snow. A sturdy thing, light brown in colour with a massive skull mounted upon his head, gazes sadly at the sets of pawprints trailing off into the mist. He cries, biting tears coursing slowly down his cheeks, staining his skull helmet. The weather simply makes the tears icy cold. With the back of his bone-wielding right paw, he gently wipes away his anguish. He thumps his tail lightly on the snow three times and waits.

"I'm here, Mother, I'm here!"

That simple ritual, he had done it at least five times. With each successive try, his hope accumulates and he wishes with all of his might that Mother might feel the earth shake beneath her paws and find him. He hopes so much.

"Please, I'm hungry and I'm tired... I want to go home. I don't want to play Hide-and-Seek anymore. I want to go home. I want to see you again."

He calls into the wind, but his voice is swallowed up.

The snow falls from up high and spirals down like leaves in autumn. They play a melancholy song that only the lost can hear.

"Mother..."

That only the lost can hear. Cubone is lonely.

--

Disfigured shapes leap around her nose as each breath issues forth from her mouth. She holds the club feebly in her left paw, content to have it trail along by her side and score a path in the snow by itself. The bone's head leaves a fairly thin impression on the floor. Her tail which drags behind her carves a large, deep imprint in the snow very close to the track the bone makes. To an attentive eye, the marks seem to give the impression of a parent and her young.

Her back is bent with age and weariness, her paws hardened over the years, her mind broad with the knowledge of the world. Her temperament? Let's say she is not a typical ferocious fighter like the other Marowaks. Rather, this Marowak has a temperament of anything BUT a warrior, but that does not mean she cannot use weaponry unskilfully. Oh no, she is a top class fighter although she would prefer to heal than fight. After all, does a mother tend to her young, the old, the sick or fight like there is no tomorrow?

Marowak sighs, tasting the cold of the snow on her tongue. She muses, where is her baby now? Wincing with physical and mental pain, the beast stumbles blindly onwards.

_My darling, where are you? Did you stay away like I told you to? Are you in the den? Hungry? Asleep, maybe? I hope you are safe. Don't worry, mother is coming, mother is coming. Quickly, old girl, back to your baby now, mother is coming..._

The rare lonely caw of the ice bird, Articuno echoes through the woods. It reminds the district of the difficult winter and the stripped trees reach with helpless hands towards the sky for the warmth of the frail sun. Perhaps spring will come soon.

Marowak veers off course, trips over a rock she didn't see in her path and collides into a nearby tree trunk. Stinging snow, not the falling powder from the sky, crashes onto her skull helmet. She howls in pain. With alarmed squeaks and grunts, hidden creatures dart off into the undergrowth in an attempt to screen themselves from prying eyes and any further disruptions. They are successful in their endeavour, for in that brief moment of activity, not one of the fleeing had even been seen.

Flailing her bone helplessly, the old Marowak tries to steady herself from her unexpected collision. Regaining posture, she sets off once again on the untouched path, the snow falling around her isolating her even more from the world through which she walks. With the settling down of the woods comes silence. Marowak continues.

_My darling..._

Hush, the quiet.

_Are you safe, my darling?_

Stillness. The world sleeps. Or does it anticipate?

Oh, did you hear that? _Hish_... There it is again: _hish, hish_. Such quiet pawsteps, and there is the scrape of bone against earth. Someone is coming this way, perhaps it is Cubone. Oh, my child! _Hish, hish_. It comes closer. Marowak strains to listen, picking up her pace. Quickly, old girl, quickly...

_Hish, hish._

She can feel each paw land as lightly as snow touches the world, but she realises with a mother's instinct that it is not her child who strides stealthily towards her. It is a different creature. The Marowak hurries, perhaps it can help her find her child? She hopes, no, she prays.

_Oh, hello there, I am Marowak. I have lost my child after I was separated from him. Some humans were rushing towards us, they were brandishing objects - red and white circles. I do not quite remember what they looked like, but please help me find my Cubone. He is all alone._

She has almost reached the stranger, now. There seems to be a cold aura contaminating the air, but she ignores it. This creature will be able to help her, an aged Marowak looking for something she had lost.

_Please, please help me. Cubone is only a few weeks old. I have not seen him in a few suns._

Marowak stumbles forward. She is waving her paws in the air, hoping to attract attention. Her tail thrashes on the ground as she lurches onward. Lifting her chin high, she is only beginning to sob again. But it is not tears of rain that she cries, it is tears of blood. Since escaping from humans and their red and white balls, she couldn't see for Marowak had been blinded.

_My dear, have you seen my Cubone---?_

But her words are cut off. Once she steps within range, scissor jaws lined with gargantuan fangs lash out and close around her throat. They crunch, and bone shatters. The clean snap echoes loudly throughout the forest canyon, and as the last reverberation melts with the chilling air, the woods become silent once again.

Aerodactyl drops the limp, lifeless body without a sound. Cold, cold eyes stare down at poor Marowak. Shifting uneasily on his strong hind legs, the grey rock dragon watches her curiously, as though he is unsure of what had just happened, wondering why she does not stand up, why she is so still. A little way away from her right paw, a bone lies splintered in two pieces, one large and one small. Smaller chips are scattered like ants around the motionless paw. The large scaly tail behind the dragon softly and gently sweeps the snow from side to side. He chirps, _Bo?_ and stretches out his wings.

"Good work, Aero," croons a tall, dark haired man clad in dark clothes, cape and white boots with a rather cruel, synthetic smile playing about his lips. Those piercing hazel eyes ensnare the weak sunlight and glint maliciously, reflecting purity of spirit and mind. That is, purity in darkness. The man flicks his short, slick hair vainly. His black cape flutters slightly in the breeze and as he lets his arm fall to his side, a large red 'R' is seen on his shirt front. So. It's Team Rocket. Surely a band of trainers working for the good? Who knows?

Light behind the man seems to cast a holy glow around his slender form.

In response to his mellow voice, Aerodactyl sharply turns his head. A frosty snowflake catches him on the snout and he issues a harsh cough. Delicately, the fossil pokemon pivots on his two footclaws and, quite uncharacteristically, pads with elegant grace towards his master.

His hindclaws stride, _hish hish_. His bony tail glides, _swish_... Together with the man, the Aerodactyl fades into the snow's shadows.

As the snowflakes tumble down, the only living things leave in their wake a dead Marowak surrounded in a pool of beautiful red. Besides the wind and powder snow, nothing moves.

But wait, did you see? A trickle of blood slowly drips from Marowak's hollowed eyes and onto the ground.

--

Cubone wanders. The sun shines a little stronger than before but it is still a vague mirage in the misty sky. Tired, hungry, lonely... the fears and the darkness, they are eating the child up from the inside. He has stopped calling for a while now. Disheartened, Cubone pauses and listens. Nothing.

Hesitantly he raises his tail off the ground. It twitches a little. Waiting, he wages a war inside himself; a war where the mind combats against the heart. The past eight times he had thumped the snow met with winter's hush and crushed hopes. Despondently, he lowers his tail.

Cubone opens his mouth and utters a squeak, "Mo... moth..." He leaves the word hanging, sniffing, and carries on his fruitless search.

Shafts of light flicker through the bare branches of sleeping trees. The soundless snow drops thicker now. They don't seem to be singing their melodies anymore.

A clouded mind thinks deeply.

_Autumn leaves twirled about cheerfully just a few weeks ago. Those leaves looked so much like the winter's symbol now, the snow; they both twirl and swirl. Snow... It collapses in heaps, it sizzles like fire, it is so cold to touch. _

I remember playing with Mother in autumn leaves. As they fell down, we chased them around. I would try to hit them with my bone. Sometimes I got them, sometimes I didn't. Mother was very good at playing the game. She always hit the leaves, even when the bone returned to her after she had flung it. She said to practice lots and lots. Oh how I wish I could become as good as her!

My, I wish I was as strong as her.

I remember the pond near our den. There used to be Yanmas that hovered there. They were really big and they made really funny noises. The water in the pond was crystal clear. On really good days, you could see the sun mirrored on the surface like you were looking at the real thing yourself. At night you could count the stars who always smiled at you and danced for you, and watch the moon glitter prettily. The lake now? Why, it's all frozen over. You can't see the sun at all. Only sometimes you can see the moon. I wish I could see the sun again. The moon seems lonely without it.

You know the way the trees try to take a little bit of sky for themselves? They reach up, higher and higher with their fingers. In autumn, they seem to want to give the sky, sun and moon green gifts. But their presents, they drop down from their hands too quickly so that when winter comes, the trees have nothing to show. Now, they beg for forgiveness because they didn't give their gifts in time. The sky is angry because it throws things down at the trees and hides their sun. Cold pretty things strike at those hands, and the warmth is taken away... but it is not the fault of the trees, oh no... The sky is just like that. It likes to be cruel.

The sky turns grey and bitter with stronger winds beginning to whip up. Cubone quivers. Even if he squints and strains his eyes, he can't see the sun anymore.

"Oh Mother, where are you?"

_Where did you go? I need you. I miss you. I want to find you. Please, come back._

Cubone forces himself to rush towards the first tree in front of him. The cold freezes his bones up and he fears that he will not be able to move. Collapsing in a heap behind the tree in an effort to get away from the driving snow, the little creature curls into a ball and watches his surroundings forlornly.

Whimpering from fear of being alone in a dangerous land, Cubone feels the tears well up in his eyes. Like before, the icy atmosphere causes the water to freeze a little, stinging his eyes painfully. He wipes them away with difficulty. Cubone whispers to himself to keep himself company as he shivers violently, his body almost as cold as ice, quite stiff too.

"Mother..."

Miserably, he curls up tighter, tail wrapped securely around his hindpaws, forepaws held close to his chest. Snow piles around him but he doesn't care. Faintly, he hears once again the solitary cry of the legendary ice bird. A fresh wave of tears threaten to flow and his vision blurs. _Don't cry. Don't cry anymore._

The snowfall gradually lessens.

"Where are you, Mother?"

A tiny flicker of movement in the sky; the sun... it's the sun. It's come back. _Hello._

Cubone closes his eyes. Now, the snow is falling in light drifts. They dazzle and sparkle with the strengthening rays of solar energy. As the wind blows the flakes about, they dance like autumn leaves in all their splendour. In a sudden flash of light, the sun tears through the clouded skies and shines with pure golden radiance as though a spirit had fused with it, allowing it to glow with might and pride like it once did.

In the silent wood, the lonely Cubone lies asleep, never to wake again.


End file.
